Tuesday 8 November 2016 13:53, UK
Ahead of the Test series against the world's number one ranked nation, Benedict Bermange - in association with HPE - looks at the influence of home advantage, and whether England have any chance against the mighty India.
India - the final frontier. Often it is considered that way in terms of overseas cricket tours. Whereas there is no longer the fear of rickety travel, primitive hotels and the spectre of Delhi belly hanging over a touring side, a trip to India brings its own special challenges found nowhere else in the world.
Since 1981, England have won only five Tests in India, losing nine and drawing 12. Both series victories in that time have been memorable ones. The David Gower-led 1984/85 tourists overcame adversity in the form of the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and British High Commissioner Percy Norris to win the series 2-1, while Alastair Cook's 2012 team triumphed by the same scoreline, and like Gower's team, came back from a 1-0 deficit.
Since 2010, home field advantage in Test cricket has been greater than at any other time in Test history. Whether it is England hosting Sri Lanka at Durham in May, or Australia being swung out by Stuart Broad at Nottingham, home teams are seemingly having it most of their own way at present. And nowhere is that more evident than with India.
India have been ordinary on their travels over that period of time - winning 10, drawing 12 and losing 18 of their 40 Tests. But at home they have been unstoppable; playing 29 Tests, winning 21, drawing five and losing only three. In fact, in 13 home Tests since the start of 2013, they have won 12 and only drawn one - a rain-affected match with South Africa at Bengaluru in November 2015 in which they had the upper hand.
It will give England some comfort that two of India's three home Test defeats in the last six years have come at their hands - in that memorable series in 2012. At Mumbai, England's two spinners Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar shared 19 wickets and Kevin Pietersen played possibly his greatest innings for England, hitting 186. It was Alastair Cook who dominated the next match at Kolkata, with an epic 190 which helped England to a seven-wicket win.
In this series, the weight will be on Captain Cook's shoulders again. With 2,341 runs in 23 Tests, he already has more runs in Tests in Asia than any other non-Asian batsman, with Jacques Kallis the only other batsman with more than 2,000. Cook is already England's leading run-scorer, and 240 runs in the series would move him into the top 10 all-time Test run-scorers, above Steve Waugh.
Cook will not turn 32 until after the series is over, so one fascination is how his career compares to Sachin Tendulkar's at the same age. Here are the leading run-scorers before turning 32 in Test cricket:
Clear daylight with five more Tests to play. If he stays fit and the hunger remains, there seems little doubt that - with the volume of Tests that England play - Cook may well end up as the greatest Test run-scorer of all time.
England's other opening batting slot is somewhat more worrying. Ben Duckett was Cook's ninth different opening partner in the four years since Andrew Strauss retired. By some way, the most successful has been Nick Compton - now very much a forgotten man:
England could give an opportunity to Haseeb Hameed who would become just their sixth teenage Test cricketer. In the recent series with Bangladesh, Mehedi Hasan became the 200th man to play Test cricket while still a teenager, and took to the game superbly.
In their history, England have blooded the fewest teenagers in the longest form of the game, seven behind the next lowest, Zimbabwe, and streets behind Pakistan, who have capped 51 teenagers in Test cricket.
Joe Root has experience of Indian conditions too - having made his Test debut in the final Test of that 2012 tour. He has evolved into a superb player of spin bowling. A further indication of how dependent England will be on their big guns of Cook and Root, is how their batting averages are that much better against spin than seam over the course of their Test careers.
With the ball, it was England's seamers who generally produced the goods, not only in Bangladesh recently, but also in the UAE against Pakistan last autumn. Stuart Broad will be playing his 100th Test at Rajkot and will be hoping to add to his remarkable record of seven times having taken at least five wickets in the same bowling spell:
Six of those spells were match-winners, the only exception being at Headingley in 2012. One spell like that would go a long way towards England winning a Test.
Chris Woakes burst on the scene this past summer, setting a new record for the most wickets in a series for England against Pakistan. England will be hoping that, in the initial absence of James Anderson, he rediscovers that form.
However, the general feeling is that it is the spinners who may hold the key. England were blessed to have Swann in their ranks for the 2012 series when he was near the peak of his powers. He topped their wicket-takers with 20, Monty Panesar just three behind him. In contrast, the Indian spinners struggled, with current world number one Ravichandra Ashwin taking just 14 wickets at 52.64 each in the series.
Fast forward four years though, and it is a very different story. Moeen Ali's 32 Tests have brought him 88 wickets, but at an average of nearly 40 runs each. However, of all England spinners with at least 50 Test wickets since the Second World War, his strike rate is the third best.
Ashwin is currently top of the world rankings, having reached 200 Test wickets in just 37 Tests - the second-fastest in Test history. His record in Asia is extraordinarily good, averaging nigh on seven wickets per match on that continent:
One area where England do currently lead the world is in terms of all-rounders. In the latest ICC World Rankings, they boast Moeen (3rd), Stokes (4th), Woakes (8th) and Broad (9th). They will need them to fire in order to take a grip on the series.
One further worry for England is that in history, spin bowlers have reached their peak ICC Bowling ranking when they have been 30 years old, the exact age Ashwin is now. His recent form in Asia has been even better, with 79 wickets in 10 matches at an average of 15.25 apiece. He is a double-threat, having also scored four Test centuries - all against the West Indies - and twice he has scored a century and taken a five-wicket haul in the same Test.
Ravindra Jadeja, often lurking under the radar in the shadow of Ashwin, is also flying high among the world's top 10 bowlers, currently ranked seventh. His 12 Tests in India have brought him 64 wickets at the fantastic average of 17.53. For someone who was first brought into the team on the back of his colossal domestic run-scoring feats (he has three first-class triple-hundreds), his bowling has proved to be a revelation in the long form of the game.
On the batting front India had just about found a stable opening partnership in Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan, but that has been put on hold due to Dhawan's broken thumb. They will also be missing Lokesh Rahul, who has hit three centuries in just nine Tests so far, with a hamstring injury. Mercurial Rohit Sharma is also ruled out of the early skirmishes with a thigh injury.
Virat Kohli has taken on the mantle from Sachin Tendulkar as the figurehead of Indian cricket and much will be expected of him. He struggled on the 2014 tour of England, failing to pass fifty in 10 innings, as James Anderson dismissed him four times in just 50 deliveries.
Ajinkya Rahane scored a memorable Test century at Lord's in 2014 and is at a career high fifth place in the ICC Test batting rankings. He averages 62.63 with six centuries in his last 17 Tests.
All is not lost if England go behind in the series, as proven by their two triumphs in 1984/85 and 2012, but with five Tests in 42 days momentum will be a key factor and England will want to start strongly if the number one ranked Test team isn't to have matters their own way at home.
Find out more about Hewlett Packard Enterprise data solutions.
Watch the first Test between India and England from 3.30am on Wednesday, live on Sky Sports 2 HD. Or watch the whole of the first Test for £10.99 without a contract - with a Week Pass from NOW TV.
